20 February 2023
Code
DevRel works on integration endpoints (a la APIs) for connecting or extending the core product/service.
Also Known As: Extensions; Providers
Problem: Certain aspects of the product/service are not easily accessible (or accessible at all) to the community, and the company has deemed it necessary that they should be. Engineering arguably should be focused on providing this, but can't due to constraints (time, budget, bandwidth, etc).
Context: Ideally, many of the extensions or integrations discussed can and should be written by third parties outside the company, in order to avoid the maintenance burden that would come with developing them "in-house". But for whatever reason, third parties haven't built those extensions or integrations, either because they lack access (the product/service is tucked behind the firewall and the code is not public), knowledge (they do not know the integration or extension points exist, or how to use them), or rationale (they do not have reason to build them).
Solution: Have the DevRel team take time to build the integration or one (or more) extensions.
Consequences: If the integration is connected to something internal that must remain internal (such as internal services or databases), chances are that maintenance of this integration will need to be continued and upheld by the DevRel team until such time that it can be handed off to Engineering to own. (And it should be handed off!) Note that Technical Support will be needed on it, so the sooner it can be "folded in" to the larger product/service offering, the better, particularly as customers make more and more use of it.
If the integration or extension is built as part of a customer or partner deal,
Variants: